


Temporal Eternity

by stand_by_me



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Aerith-centric, Canon Divergence, I'm Sorry, Jenova is a pretty big deal, Jenova seems like something the Doctor would get involved with, Multi, RTD's era, Time Travel, Timey-Wimey, launching dreams into space, the most contrived plot ever, wibbly-wobbly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-03
Updated: 2016-05-03
Packaged: 2018-06-06 04:43:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6738637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stand_by_me/pseuds/stand_by_me
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Aerith opened her eyes to see Cloud standing in front of her, expression blank. She smiled--Holy had been summoned, and the Planet would be safe. Then time seemed to stop all around her. A foreign sound filled the air as something materialized between them, and Aerith became very confused when she could make out clearly what the thing was.</p><p>It was a blue box.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Temporal Eternity

“Then, I’ll be going now.  I’ll come back when it’s all over,” Aerith said with a wave, forcing cheer into her voice.  _He needs to have hope._

She walked out of the dream-space and opened her eyes in the real, physical sleeping forest with a gasp.  She could feel Sephiroth’s wrath aimed at her even here, in this spiritual haven, and she knew her time was running short.  Bringing a hand to her braid to confirm the materia was still there, she set off for the end of the woods.

The cries of the planet brought sorrow to her ears, loud enough that she could hear them even through the thick trees.  The human race had collectively made far too many mistakes for one woman alone to fix, but Aerith could at least ensure its continued existence.  Hopefully.

A black shadow with no master moved somewhere to her left, and Aerith cursed silently, freezing in her tracks.  She had made it here as fast as she could—no small feat without a vehicle or whatever supernatural powers Sephiroth possessed.  Truly, the man moved as if his body was made of smoke.  _Maybe it is…that would certainly explain a lot._

The shadow dissolved into a cloud of mist, and Aerith let out the breath she’d been holding.  He would try to kill her at some point, she was far too much of a threat to be left alone, but she would press on.  This was the path she had chosen.

_It’s only a matter of time before Sephiroth uses Meteor.  That’s why I’m going to protect it.  Only a survivor of the Cetra, like me, can do it.  The secret is just up here._

Aerith had told Cloud she was being led by something, and she hadn’t been lying.  There was a pull at her soul, something she couldn’t describe beyond old clichés like fate or destiny, but she knew she had to follow it.  To the end of the forest, it seemed like.

Cloud…despite his rough exterior, he was perhaps the sweetest person Aerith had ever met, as well as the most enigmatic.  He had fallen through the roof of her church, wearing what looked an awful lot like Zack’s clothes and carrying what looked an awful lot like Zack’s sword.  He even acted a lot like the missing man at times.  But when her old boyfriend’s name came up in conversation, he didn’t recognize it.

And their first time in Cosmo Canyon, while the boys were exploring, she and Tifa took some time to themselves just to hang out.  It had taken some coaxing to get the other woman to open up about what was weighing so heavily on her mind, but when she did it confirmed Aerith’s worst fears.  If Tifa’s words were true, Cloud’s account of the Nibelheim mission was even more incomplete than she’d previously thought.  Zack had _been_ there and either Cloud didn’t remember it, or he was lying.  Aerith gravitated towards the first option.  After what had happened at the ruins of the temple, she was certain that whatever was wrong with Cloud was not his fault.  Sephiroth had an unnatural and dangerous power over her friend, one that could easily be all of their undoing if she couldn’t summon Holy in time.

If she succeeded today, she could fix everything.  Stop Sephiroth from being able to destroy everything, then stop him from being able to destroy _anything._ Then her and Tifa, and Zack if they could find him, would work together to fix whatever had gone wrong in Cloud’s mind.

Aerith didn’t believe Zack was dead, not really.  She did feel something pull at her heart not long before all this started, something that reminded her strongly of _him_ , but it wasn’t the same as what she felt when her mother’s husband died all those years ago.  It didn’t feel like he died, more like he…vanished.  _Just another mystery to solve.  I’ll add it to my list._

She could feel Jenova’s presence nearby, like sandpaper fraying the edge of her spiritual being.  Sephiroth must truly be close, and have brought his “mother” with him.  That wouldn’t do.

The trees ended, and Aerith found herself in a canyon of sorts.  Shivering at the cold, she broke into a run, heading for the ruins up ahead.  _No time to lose._

She had to stop for breath once inside the forgotten capital, and took the opportunity to appreciate the beautiful architecture all around her, crumbling as it was.  This must have been a magnificent city once.  _Before the Calamity fell from the skies._

Aerith’s mind started to wander again as the nerves finally kicked in.  Jenova was truly the root of all their problems.  If she had never come to the Planet…the Cetra would all still be alive, and their wisdom might have prevented so many of the wrongs prevalent today.  Perhaps even ShinRa wouldn’t have existed without Jenova.  Sephiroth certainly wouldn’t.

Heart pounding, she accepted that she wasn’t going to get any peace of mind until she found the right spot to start the summoning.  She took a deep breath, and concentrated her thoughts like Bugenhagen had shown her.  _Listen to the pull, let it guide you.  Where am I supposed to go, Planet?_

The answer, apparently, was forward.  Simple enough.  Aerith held her staff in front of her in what little self-defense she had, and moved directly into the heart of the city.  There was a clearing in the trees with a pool that she felt clearly as diluted Lifestream.  The souls inside called out to her for help, begging for a release, naming the people they wanted to reach.

But Aerith couldn’t do anything for them now.  So she brushed off their grief and pressed on, into a deceptively small building that had an unusually strong draft.

The dread in her stomach increased as she approached the staircase, and descended into what was essentially a large, open cavern.  _I’ll be too vulnerable here, but…if this is where the Planet needs me to go, I’ll go._

There was an altar in the middle of another pool that Aerith instinctively knew was the right spot.  She got the strong urge to set down her staff and indulged it, leaning her Princess Guard up against the ruined wall of what might have been an old place of worship.  It was probably necessary for her to be unarmed for the incantation.

Aerith cracked her knuckles behind her back and thought of Tifa, and prayed that she would get to see her again soon.  They had become such good friends since they met…she cherished every second they had spent together, even if most of them were preoccupied with Cloud’s obvious illness and Sephiroth’s dangerous plans.  _Just hang in there, Aer.  Someday you’ll look back on these hard times and laugh.  But you have to actually get through the hard times first._

She lifted up the edge of her skirt and took the stepping stones one at a time, making her way to the far end of the altar.  _Is this where I’m supposed to be?_

No answer.  She wasn’t sure what she had expected—the spiritual energy on this platform was strong, and it was probably blocking out the usual voices she heard.  It would take many more years of study before Aerith could understand everything the Planet tried to tell her…so much of it was in languages long forgotten, or communicated without words at all.

Aerith ignored the pounding in her ribcage and got down on her knees, bowing her head and clasping her hands together.  Her best and worst-kept secret—the white materia she wore in her hair—it was the secret to saving the world.  But it was still going to take a lot of work on her part.

She didn’t technically know what she was supposed to do—all she knew about summoning Holy was from the stories her biological mother had told while they were both Hojo’s captives, and she had forcibly blocked out most of those memories.  They were too painful.

A thought struck her.  _Maybe that’s what happened to Cloud.  Hojo could easily have done enough damage to cause amnesia, and I wouldn’t put it past him to try to forge some telepathic link between Sephiroth and someone else.  I hope that’s not it, though…I wouldn’t wish the labs on anyone, not even Sephiroth._

Aerith berated herself.  She needed to focus on the task at hand if she wanted a chance to work on all the others.  Digging deep into her memories, she found the words as if she had swept them out from under a rug.  She closed her eyes to begin, hoping it didn’t matter that she was praying in the wrong language.

_A prayer to the road that leads…a prayer for the Promised Land…Holy, holy…temporal eternity.  Only on the brink of destruction…may this force save us.  A prayer to the road that leads, a prayer for the Promised Land.  Holy, holy, temporal eternity.  A prayer for the prevention of the Calamity._

Aerith repeated the words in her mind, enunciating each one in the way the elders at Cosmo had stressed.  She needed to maintain a certain mental volume if the incantation was going to work.

After what seemed like several minutes, the outside world seemed to fade around her, although it had already been quiet enough that it didn’t make any significant difference.  Aerith started to see visions in her mind’s eye, a vortex of changing colors.  First it was shades of black, slowly overlaid with silver and white.  It formed a column of palest blue, surrounded by black and medium purples.  Aerith instinctively knew that she was seeing the heart of the Lifestream itself, the very core of the Planet.

Then it changed.  The column transformed into a winding tunnel of clouds, in stormy greys and sorrowful blues, a pattern that reminded her of the Planet’s inhabitants.  And their futures, which were up to her to ensure.  The clouds gave way to beams of light in a mysterious green, a hue that did not belong to the Lifestream.  Aerith was awestruck, but she shoved the feeling to the corner of her mind and maintained her focus.  _A prayer to the road that leads, a prayer for the Promised Land.  Holy, holy, temporal eternity.  Only on the brink of destruction may this force save us._

The green beams gave way to helixes of electric indigo in a void of darkness, the sensation so foreign that Aerith almost believed she had done something wrong.  But she wasn’t the one calling for help, the Planet was.  It knew what to do.  Her responsibility was just to communicate what was needed.  _Holy, holy, temporal eternity.  A prayer for the prevention of the Calamity._

The blue helixes disappeared without warning, replaced by complete darkness.  Aerith panicked for a moment.  There was supposed to be a feeling of…completeness before this happened.  She was supposed to know whether or not she’d succeeded.

There was a flash of something unrecognizable in the darkness—it was only there for the briefest of moments.  Then the void was filled again, this time by rings and swaths of red and orange light.  The sight of them, however imaginary, brought her a strange and wondrous hope.

It was with a sense of peace and finality that the visions faded, and Aerith let out a breath she didn’t know she’d been holding.  Against all odds, she’d done it!  Holy had been summoned, she was sure of it.  Sephiroth could do whatever he wanted now, but the Planet would not be destroyed by Meteor.  _There’s still ShinRa to contend with, though…but they’ll be a piece of cake compared to this._

Aerith stayed kneeled in the position of prayer, too moved by the experience of seeing the vortexes to get up or even open her eyes just yet.   The white materia had come to life in her hair, and she could feel it communicating with the matter all around her, calling out for Holy.

Twin shouts were what brought her back to reality.  “Cloud!  Stop!”

“Ugh…what are you making me do?”

The sound of Cloud’s voice, however pained it was, was more than welcome after being apart for so long.  Aerith opened her eyes to see him standing on the other side of the altar, sword dropped to the ground.  _Wait, was he…?_

Cloud didn’t say anything else, just looked at her with an uncharacteristically blank expression that had her heart stopping in her chest.  _What is Sephiroth doing?  I don’t see him…how is he getting into Cloud’s mind if he’s not here in the room?_

Aerith gave him the most reassuring smile she could muster, hoping it would ground him somehow.  Everything would be alright.  She had summoned Holy.  The Planet would be safe, at least for now.  With that out of the way, it was only a matter of time before they defeated Sephiroth and ShinRa, and then they could get healing Cloud and finding what was lost.

The expression on her friend’s face abruptly changed to one of pure panic, and Aerith drew her brows together in confusion.  _That’s strange…I should get up.  Where’s Sephiroth?_

Before she could move, something happened that was stranger still.  Time seemed to…stop.  The air around her became stagnant, Cloud’s face froze in horror, and the distant figures of Tifa and Barret in the distance stopped moving.  Tifa had thrown the Princess Guard towards the altar—it was frozen in mid-air a few feet in front of her, and she hesitantly reached out to grab it.  She wasn’t sure whether to be surprised or reassured when it moved under grasp, and she clutched it to her chest.

Aerith looked up, and nearly screamed when she saw that the tip of the Masamune had been mere inches from her back, Sephiroth suspended in mid-air like some sort of fallen angel.  _Whatever happened, it happened just in time._

Shaking, she backed up from the spot and stood up on wobbling legs, trying not to panic.  She’d nearly died.  Time had stopped.  Time had _stopped_.  Or maybe it hadn’t—the white materia still seemed to be calling out for something.  She reached back and, for the first time in a long while, removed it from her braid.  Sure enough, it was pulsating with light.  This didn’t make any sense.  Was the solution to preventing the Calamity just to stop time?  Was Aerith sentenced to live forever in a world devoid of life?  That would be the emptiest victory possible.  Holy hadn’t even shown up yet, if anything the elders at Cosmo had said was true.  The spell was supposed to create a shield of blue light that surrounded the whole Planet.  _This can’t be right._

Then a curious sound broke the silence.  Aerith had trouble thinking of words to describe it—like wind through a static-filled radio channel, like a blender filled with active quake spells, like a metal bracer scraping on piano wire.  Whatever it was, it filled her with both fear and…hope, strangely enough.

Aerith moved to guard Cloud, sure that whatever it was must be here for him.  Before she could take more than a step, however, something large started to materialize between them, effectively cutting her off.

She felt complete and utter confusion when the _something_ became solid.  It was…a blue box, about four feet wide and eight feet tall, with high windows and a small sign on the side facing her.

_Police telephone, free for use of public.  Advice and assistance obtainable immediately.  Officer and cars respond to all calls.  Pull to open._

Aerith had absolutely no idea what to make of this.  The only people resembling police that she knew of were Turks, and she had been in regular contact with them for most of her life.  They didn’t have a time-stopping disappearing blue box.  And they certainly didn’t respond to calls for advice or assistance.

She ended up just standing there and staring rather sourly at it for ruining her plans, until it _opened_ and a woman’s face appeared, with red hair and kind eyes.

“This is going to sound _really_ weird,” the woman said, “but trust me.  I need you to put this where you were kneeling a bit ago.”

Then she tossed something that made Aerith’s jaw drop and heat flare up in her chest.  “What’s going on?!” she asked indignantly.  “What—is this _me_?!”

“It’s not actually you,” the woman said calmly, “just a good imitation.  It’s not alive, that’s kind of the point.”

Aerith felt her composure slipping.  “That doesn’t explain anything!” she said, more shrilly than she intended.  But she rather thought she was justified for being upset, when she had _absolutely no idea_ what was going on anymore.  “ _Why_ am I putting this…this doll here?”

The woman stepped aside and a man in a brown pinstriped suit took her place.  “Who—are you a Turk?!” Aerith almost shouted, holding up her staff.  “I’m not going back to the labs, never again!”

The man gave her a piercing stare that might have been intended to reassure her, but was more frightening than anything else.  “Look, the first thing I need you to do is calm down,” he said.  “We’ve already been here too long—time’s not actually stopped, just really slow.  We need to be long gone by the time _that guy’s_ sword hits the pavement,” he added, gesturing rather pointedly at Sephiroth.

Aerith took a shaky breath, the shock too much for her to think rationally.  “What. Is. Going. On.”

“You called,” the man said simply, but with a degree of sincerity that she couldn’t doubt.  “I’ll explain later, but I _cannot stress enough_ the importance that we get out of here safely first.  There is a lot more at stake here than just your life, Aerith Gainsborough.”

That grounded her a bit, although she wasn’t sure how this man could possibly know her name.  Aerith nodded stiffly and picked up the doll.  “Thanks,” she said, not sure what for.  She set it up in the position she had been praying in and clasped its hands together, and after a moment of debate, took the white materia out of the pocket she’d placed it in and put it in the doll’s hair.  It was probably best for it to stay here, although she would miss the comforting presence it brought.  In such close proximity, she could see that the mysterious man had been right—Masamune was moving, ever so slowly, and it was a pinky’s width away from reaching the doll’s back.

“Alright, enough of that,” the man said impatiently.  “Come on, we need to go.”

“What?  What about my friends?”  _I can’t leave them behind._

He gave her a look of regret and sorrow, one that spoke of having made this decision many times before and it never getting any easier.  “We can’t take them,” he said.  “I’m so, _so_ sorry, Aerith.”

She felt her heart break a little and closed her eyes.  “Why not?”

The woman reached out and took her hand.  “I know it’s hard,” she said.  “Leaving them behind.  But we need you to help save them, okay?”

Save them?  Hadn’t she just done that?  She thought back to her conversation with Cloud earlier.  _I’ll be going now.  I’ll come back when it’s all over._   “Will…will I be able to come back?” she asked.

“It’s complicated,” the woman admitted.  “I really, really hope so, but…it’s hard to tell sometimes, with these things.”

Accepting that the only reasonable course of action was to go with the mysterious pair, Aerith reached out to take the woman’s hand, and then paused halfway there as a thought struck her.  “How are the three of us going to fit inside this thing?” she asked.  For that matter, how did even just the two of them fit inside?

The man’s somber expression gave way to a rather disarming smile.  “I always love this part,” he said, stepping back a bit.  “Come on.”

Aerith took the woman’s hand, who helped her through the narrow door into what was probably the only thing that could have surprised her at this point.

“It’s bigger on the inside,” she said plainly.  “Why’s it bigger on the inside?”

“You hear that, Donna?  She asked why!” the man said, running around what looked like a rather complicated console in the center of an _impossibly large room_ , pressing buttons and pulling levers.  “I love when people ask why.”

The sound from before, the one that signaled the box’s arrival, filled the room again.  Aerith turned around to press her face to the window, and saw Sephiroth’s sword finally enter the doll’s back just as everything disappeared into a vortex of indigo.  _Be safe, Cloud.  Everyone.  I’ll come back…one day._

Then the colors changed to red.  “This—this is what I saw!” she said, realization hitting her more forcefully than the truck had hit Palmer back in Rocket Town.  “While I was praying!”

“What you’re seeing is time and space itself,” the man said, leaning on the console.

The woman, Donna, gestured for her to join them in the center of the room.  “You must have a lot of questions,” she said, seeming to understand the shock Aerith was going through.  “We’ll answer whatever we can.”

She decided to start with the obvious.  “Why is this place bigger on the inside?”

“A bit of magic and a lot of science,” the man said.  Aerith looked around.  The room they were in was circular, roughly the size of Cid’s house, but she spied a staircase at the far end.  And this…thing, whatever it was, was clearly a vehicle of some sort.

“This isn’t magic,” Aerith said with a good measure of certainty.  “At least not any that I’ve ever heard of.”

“The universe is a lot bigger than your Gaia,” he said, twirling something roughly the size of a pencil in his hand.  “All science is magic, and all magic is science, when you get to the heart of matters.”

“We understand that where I’m from, too,” Aerith said, narrowing her eyes.  This man was acting a bit condescending, and she didn’t appreciate it.

“Oh, don’t misunderstand!” he said, pocketing the thing he’d been twirling.  “I’m not trying to belittle you, Aerith.  Just…you’ve seen a lot very recently, and I don’t want to overwhelm you.  We want to help.”

“Why?” she asked, setting her staff down towards the wall.  The man seemed to relax a bit more after that, and Aerith took that to mean he wasn’t fond of weapons.  _Even more curious why he’d want to help me, then.  My life is full of weapons._

“Well,” he said, the inflections more dramatic than how anyone Aerith knew usually talked, “Donna and I—we’re time travelers.  The ship we’re in now, it’s called the TARDIS.  Stands for ‘Time and Relative Dimension in Space.’”

“Time and Relative Dimension in Space,” Aerith repeated, crossing her arms in front of her chest as she processed this new information.  “So you can go anywhere, at any time?  Even…other worlds?”

“Theoretically, yes,” he answered.  “Although the reality of it tends to be more complicated.”

Aerith thought about this for a second.  “How come I had to replace my body back there, then?  How’d you even _get_ a replica that good?”

The two of them looked at each other and smiled, and Aerith wondered what volume of horrors they must have seen to be able to take faking someone’s death so lightly.  “I’ll answer the second question first,” the man said.  “Have you ever been to a fair, Aerith?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Do you recall there being a Norstein Bekkler there, by chance?” he asked, resting his chin on his hand.

Despite her confident response, Aerith had only ever been to one fair, a small celebration held in Sector 6 when former commander Genesis Rhapsodos had been declared dead.  It wasn’t a sanctioned gathering, and so it was mostly just the local poor sharing bootleg liquor and dancing around the heaps of trash.  It was shortly after Zack had convinced her to turn the flowers into a business…she had made a lot of gil that day.

But now that she thought about it…yes, there was a shabby tent in the corner, and she recalled a few kids walking out who mentioned a Norstein Bekkler.  “What about him?” she asked once she reached this conclusion.

“Well, I’ve been traveling for a long time, Aerith.  Norstein Bekkler shows up at every fair, at every celebration, on every planet, throughout all of time.  I’ve been trying to figure out who he really is for what seems like forever.  Maybe another traveler like me, maybe a fixed point in the universe, I really don’t know,” the man said, ruffling his hair.  “I digress.  The point is, he makes these beautifully realistic dolls of people.  I once stopped at a green cheese festival on Raxicoricofallapatorious and asked him for a life-size model of President Bill Clinton, and he had it mailed to an apartment I had in a different galaxy some two centuries earlier!  The poor neighbors didn’t know what to make of it.”

“…What?”  _I don’t have a clue where that is, or who…Bill Clinton is.  That’s not even a real-sounding name._

Donna poked the main in the arm, and he pouted at her.  “You’re getting too big-picture too quickly,” she said.  “Get on with it.”

He nodded and looked back towards her.  “So I found Bekkler at a carnival and asked for a model of you,” he said slowly.  “Do you have any guess as to why?”

Aerith nodded.  “I’m assuming it’s because…everyone needs to believe I’m dead.  Or maybe just Sephiroth.  Which doesn’t make sense, because he doesn’t have any power over time…or does he?”

“No, he doesn’t,” he said.  “But Jenova does.”

Aerith took a deep breath as she realized the implications of that last bit.  “So…Jenova, then.  She’s more than a threat to just my Planet?”

Donna nodded.  “I’m not sure if you found this out yet or not, but Jenova is the last of an ancient race who consume whole planets at once.”

“And not just any planets, but living Planets,” the man added, moving his arms around an imaginary sphere.  “Your Gaia is more than just a floating rock in space, Aerith.  It’s a living thing in itself, and it’s planets like that which feed Jenova.”

“I already know it’s alive,” she said.  “I’ve been able to communicate with it for most of my life.”

“Ah yes, Aerith the Ancient,” the main said, a twinkle in his eyes.  “You end up famous, you know that?”

She didn’t respond, getting the feeling that the man would keep talking without a prompt.  He did.  “Your friends commemorate your death for the rest of their lives,” he said.  “Aerith, the last Ancient.  You summoning Holy saved them, and the world—the history books say that you even managed to continue communicating with Cloud after your death.”

 _Cloud._ “What happens to him?” she asked, hesitantly for fear of being denied an answer.  “I think he was very sick where we left him.”

Donna and the man exchanged looks, and he sighed in defeat under her firm gaze.  “It’s probably not a good idea to tell you,” he said, “but I will anyway.  Donna will chew me out later if I don’t.  Cloud and the rest of your friends travel to the North Crater to avenge your death, and Sephiroth, the silver-haired bastard, he invades Cloud’s mind enough to convince him to give up the Black Materia.  Then he falls directly into the Lifestream, contracting a case of mako poisoning that was never surpassed in your planet’s history.”

Aerith couldn’t suppress a gasp.  “What about…before?” she asked.  “He was having issues even before then.”

“I’m afraid we don’t know,” Donna said apologetically.  “Cloud never spoke of it to anyone outside his family, perhaps not even them, and he never wrote it down anywhere.  Lost to time.”

“What about after, then?”

The man cleared his throat.  “Well, he does get better eventually, and then the Planet’s natural defense wakes up and goes after that local evil power company of yours.  Your friends just barely manage to stop it and defeat Sephiroth before Meteor hits, and a combination of Holy and the Lifestream protects the Planet.  Some more stuff happens after that, but it’s not as important, and you’re more…directly involved.”

Aerith blinked slowly.  This was a lot to take in.  “How can I be directly involved if I’m dead?” she asked.

“Because if all else fails, we take you back,” the man said, “and you die instead of the doll.  We’re trying to prevent that from happening, because of what happens outside of Gaia.”

She didn’t voice her question, but it came across all the same.  Donna crossed her arms over her chest.  “Jenova is split apart by some very irresponsible people on your planet, and that split, very far down the line, ends up creating a rift in time and space.”

“A…rift?”

“Rifts happen a lot,” the man said, more casually than anyone really should when talking about the destruction of worlds, “but this rift also ends up creating a link between us and an alternate universe.”

“Hold on…there are alternate universes?”

“Oh yeah,” the man said, looking down, “all sorts.  Pocket worlds that exist in just a few seconds in our time, whole alternate universes where one thing happens differently…there’s even a space in between them.  A void, so to speak.”

“Can you travel to those parallel worlds, too?”

The man’s expression became very sad all of a sudden, and Aerith regretted voicing that question.  Donna put a hand on his shoulder and spoke for him.  “No,” she said, unable to keep all the pity out of her voice.  “No, we can’t.”

The man regained his composure after a moment.  “The trouble is what’s in that void,” he said.  “Cyborgs, of the sort that make Sephiroth look downright benevolent.  They exist to exterminate every living thing that isn’t them, across all of time and space.”

Aerith nodded.  “Okay, that definitely sounds like a problem.”

“It’s taken me and Donna a long time to figure this out, but these cyborgs…Daleks, they’re called…their history goes back even farther than we thought.  Their parent species, before they started mucking about with genetics to turn themselves into killing machines, was descended from a few Jenova fragments that happened to float their way after leaving your planet.”

“So…they’re like a race of mini-Sephiroths?”

The man laughed.  “In intent, yes.  They’re a lot uglier than him, though, and far less human.  While Sephiroth was remembered as a highly emotional figure, the Daleks are quite the opposite.  All they feel is rage, and hate.”

Aerith rather thought that was all Sephiroth felt as well, but didn’t comment.  These two had already shown that they knew much more than her on the topic of her world’s history.  “How’d you know where to find me?” she asked, putting her hands on her hips.

“There’s a planet on the other side of the universe,” the man said, “a planet that’s one huge library.  It’s got books on everything you could imagine—science, religion, fiction…history.  We spent some time there a while back.”

The lost look in his eyes kept Aerith from asking anything else about this planet of libraries, so she kept going down her list of questions.  “Okay, but how did you know _when_ to find me?  That was kind of a very specific moment in time.”

“It’s pretty cool,” Donna said.  “We traveled back to near the beginning of your planet’s history, all the way to when the White Materia first came into existence.”

The man took out the pencil-sized thing he’d been holding earlier.  “I jury-rigged it to send a signal to the TARDIS when activated.  You summoned Holy, all right, but you also summoned us.”

Aerith nodded, and the three of them sat in silence for a moment while she thought over all of this.  It was weird, to put it lightly.  She had to help these two stop Jenova somewhere in the past, in order to save the rest of the universe in the future, from…Daleks, whatever they were.  And she hadn’t even known time travel existed a few hours ago.

“What do we need to do?” she asked after a few minutes.

Donna laughed.  “We don’t usually plan even this far ahead,” she admitted.  “Not much point when everything’s subject to change.  But the neat thing about time travel is that in most cases, you can just…go somewhere else and come back later, once you know what to do.”

“Well put, Donna,” the man said.  “We still don’t know enough yet to just charge in and go after Jenova.  Anything other questions?”

“Yeah…what’s your name?”

He smiled and ran a hand through his hair.  “Took you long enough.  I’m the Doctor.”

Aerith scoffed.  “That’s a title, not a name.  Doctor who?”

The two of them laughed, and Aerith would have been slightly offended if it wasn’t so obviously some sort of inside joke.

“Really, it’s just the Doctor,” he said.  “Where I’m from, Aerith, people choose their own names, and that’s just the one I chose.”

“…Why?”

He shrugged, a gesture that put her immediately in mind of Cloud, despite the fact that the two of them were pretty much polar opposites.  “The name is kind of like a promise,” he said, “a promise to help people, and to fix things.  With all this power…it’s sort of my responsibility to make sure the universe keeps on living.”

Aerith could understand that.  It was what had driven her to summon Holy in the first place, after all.  “Alright then, Doctor, where are we going?”

He grabbed a brown trench coat from a hook on the wall and put it on.  “Right now, we’re going to Cardiff,” he said, pulling some more levers on the console.  “There’s this one café in town, and I’m having a seafood craving.”

**Author's Note:**

> So, my brain refused to shut up until I wrote this. There are so many time travel fics in this fandom but the vast majority of them are focused on Cloud...and Aerith as a companion, guys. So my mind went all Shia LaBeouf and was like "Don't let your dreams be dreams!" and here we are. Also, yes, I totally Chrono Trigger'd that scene.
> 
> I wrote most of this during a 2 am fit of finals-induced stress, so...not sure if I want to continue this or not (especially since time travel isn't anything new here). But I wrote the first chapter, so I thought I might as well post it.


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